Update 1.4 features list
Hi everyone, please find below the features for the forthcoming 1.4 update to Empire: Total War.
The focus for the update has been AI, both campaign and battle along with improvements to sieges and the naval rebalancing. A lot of work has been put into the campaign and diplomacy AI, focusing on how it wages war, makes alliances and peace as well as use of naval invasions. Battle side improvements have been made to most areas of the AI with the focus on the siege AI which has had major changes made to it. Sieges have also had a lot of work done on them with a lot of bugs fixed, improvements made to pathfinding and how guns and troops on walls work.
Below is a list of some of the fixes that will be in 1.4:
– Fix for auto unlimbering causing the attack order to terminate prematurely resulting in an inability to stop the unit from firing.
– Fix for troops on fort walls not using fort gun range when judging when to fire on enemy troops.
– Fix for fort guns using wrong targeting formula.
– Fixes to fort pathfinding and use of ropes.
– Multiplayer soft lock fixes.
– Fix crash in quotes table.
– Improved AI diplomacy.
– Cumulative updates to improve AI invasion behaviour.
– Added tooltips for alliance button in diplomacy.
– Bug fixes and improvements to AI counter offers.
– Improvements to AI diplomatic valuation of military access and alliances.
– Fix for wind sounds not working in naval battles
– Fixed ship wakes not always working.
– Fixed disembarking subsets of armies and agents from navies.
– Fixed potential crash disembarking agents from navies.
– Fixed armies not being booted out of regions when losing military access gained by joining an ally in war.
– Improved AI diplomacy valuation of technologies.
– Fix for bug where general’s unit for an upper class rebellion was coming from the region owning faction rather than the faction rebelling, even if a suitable unit was available – eg, Cherokee owning a region that rebels to American Rebels, the general’s unit was a Native American chief.
– Fixed reinforcements from unreachable positions.
– Fixed bug preventing disembarking.
– Balance of power fix for attack of opportunity.
– Fixed bug that was causing issues with embarking an army containing multiple characters.
– Minor tweak to stop some ship sails endlessly play furling sound.
– Fixed path blocked bug.
– Diplomacy counter-offer improvements.
– Fix for fast forward not working as intended on some PCs. Will always speed up if camera is still, if camera moves fast forward will be as fast as possible on each PC.
I was actually on this blog yesterday thinking “Oh man, it’s been a while since the last post/update. They probably stopped working on ETW.
AND THEN BOOM!
Nice stuff.
Posted by Mikhail Popov on September 1st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Is there any news on the multiplayer campaign?
Posted by Wil on September 1st, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Great, really glad to hear this news. My biggest gripe with the game has been the poor AI diplomacy, so I’m especially glad to hear that was one of your main focuses. Some nations’ counter-offers were ridiculous!
“Hey Russia, how about if I give you 10 turns of military access, you give me 10 turns of military access?”
“Hmm, I don’t know Britain. How about this instead? You give me Sweden, Norway, and Finland and I’ll give you Preserved Foods, three dollars and an Icebreaker. Sound good?”
Posted by Alex Marra on September 2nd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Please, please, please tell me that before all of the above improvements were made, the main CTD’s were sorted out.
I’ve had this game from the day it came out and I’m so fed up with re loading crashed games every 3 or 4 turns!!!
Posted by Paul on September 2nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
To all friends of ETW,
I have some complaints about the changes in update 1.4 of ETW.
The customer relation seems to suffer a bit from last patch, as it made the
game experience a bit uncomfortable. The patch made it impossible to unlock
smaller nations by simply removing the fog of war. It might be obvious that
I was absolutely disappointed.
Regarding the other changes is my opinion that they are not enough. A few
very important things are still missing. At least an extended map is needed.
This map should have South America, Africa (Cape Provinces), Madagascar,
Colonies in India (properties of UK, France and Dutch). Best would be to
have a world map.
In addition would it be necessary to have following nations selectable by
the player:
Portugal with colonies,
Venice,
Italy,
Hannover,
Saxonia,
Bavaria
Morocco is not essential but would make it a bit more complete.
If CA is unable or unwilling to do these changes, it might be a good
decision to leave it to the mod creators and give them as much support as
they need.
Thank you for your attention. I would appreciate if this text could reach
someone’s mind and would change something (I don’t expect it, but hope
doesn’t cost anything.)
Best Regards
Dr.Bessner
Posted by dr.Bessner on September 2nd, 2009 at 8:07 pm
what about new mp maps 2v2 3v3 4v4 plz
Posted by neworder on September 2nd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I get a lot of screen freezes that requires me to reboot, looking at the boards looks like I am not alone. Is there going to be some fixes for this? Worked fine with the old patches, but you know as time goes on you and Microsoft both do updates, so who knows the real cause is. I have Vista 64 bit.
Posted by Curt on September 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Hope this works this game i love but the crashes in it are insane. I have followed the total war series and have never had so much problems i do with this game its an awesome game jsut hope this next one fixes most of the problems
Posted by redsox23 on September 4th, 2009 at 1:52 am
One suggestion that I had to include in this or a subsequent update (and for Napoleon Total War) would be the ability for admirals to transfer ships within a fleet. For example if you have an admiral on a 6th rate that joins a fleet with a 2nd rate in it, he would be able to transfer his flag over to the 2nd rate. Historically it was common practice for an admiral to take command of the largest and / or most prestigious ship in the fleet. Thanks for all the great games CA has developed.
Posted by Josh on September 4th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
When will this new update be released?
Posted by Jay on September 4th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Will the problem with the fast forward in the battle replays be fixed? When you put it in fast forward it gets stuck in fast forward, and you are unable to fast forward to a point in a replay as you desired. Also what about the light infantry glitch? If you put your skirmishers on light infantry doctrine before they fire their first shot they won’t be facing forward ready to shoot. So when the enemy approaches their arc of fire is pointed the wrong direction. Well thank you for listening, and thank you for all your work to make this game even greater than it is. Keep up your support for this game, we really appreciate it.
Posted by Mark Gustin on September 5th, 2009 at 3:31 am
thanks
Posted by Guldi_PKV on September 5th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Hi,
I cannot continue playing my actual save game after steam downloaded this last update. Will there still be any hotfix that will solve this problem?
Posted by Sandreal on September 6th, 2009 at 11:48 am
NO DLC UNLESS IT’S FREE!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Imperiumiv on September 7th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
What about a limit on rifles in multiplayer? you ever been windbushe spammed!
Posted by Stringfellow1983 on September 8th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I don’t want to create any extra work or be moany or anything like that. So feel free(er) to ignore this =).
Just wondering how plausable it would be to get a bit more retreating involved.
When I’m attacking a settlement or fort & the computer sallys I can’t run away screaming like a little girl if I want to.
Sometimes a fleet will sink when everything made it to open water (in the middle of open ocean) after retreating from the battle map. But that just makes me think of headless chickens firing a cannon so I just laugh when that happens.
The computer never retreats from battles. Even when its just one group of milita against 4000 entities of various godliness =) ; or a sloop against 24 heavy 1st rates.
Also, having nailed ship battles to ‘The Wall’ Would it be possible to press a button and float around the whole ship rather than just one gun deck? Pirates of the Caribbean style views & control or like some other cooler pirate reference.
Thanks for reading…. again feel free(er) to ignore this =).
….oh well, back to the asylum.
Posted by Karl the fly on September 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Are the supply routes that are being put into Napolean total war being put into Empire.
If not can you put them in because it would make the game a lot more realistic.
Also could you put in the quick battle option in both games. And more extra downloadable units please.
Great updates, keep them coming.
Posted by David on September 12th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
What about fixing the massively unfair autoresolve system? At the moment an army of 400 will regularly retreat from 125 men, or 80 dragoons will lose against a single cannon.
I appreciate that auto’ing cant take tactics into account but it is still way unfair, especially when some of us cannot control every battle since it takes so long to load.
– Sniper Out
Posted by RobSniper on September 12th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
You guys need to work on a UI interface option to enable larger fonts.
Playing on a HTPC setup 6 feet away from a 50″ panel monitor many of the fonts are too small to be readable without the use of binoculars.
Most PC gamers are or plan to migrate their systems to a living room/home theatre setup. 10pt fonts just don’t work in this new reality.
Try playing this game on a Samsung 50″ DLP at normal viewing distance. Inability to read text makes the game near unplayable. The days stuck on an uncomfortable desk chair for hours are gone: the PC will remain connected to the HDTV. PC game developers seem to think we should all be stuck at a desk, mabe 10 years ago that was a safe assumption. It is not today’s reality.
Posted by Brian on September 13th, 2009 at 5:45 am
1,4 version causes my computer to crash. Cannot get past the end pf the summer of 1704 into winter of same year without it crashing after ending summer turn.. Please fix it.
Posted by Turnermanet on September 13th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Any chance of looking into the broken “Skirmish Mode” of the light troops? This is an ongoing problem, yet to be addressed.
Regards
Glen
Posted by The Redcoat on September 15th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Hi, I wanted to leave some comments about game errors or problems I’ve seen for Empire Total War. First, those of us who played Medeival total war II all know about how overpowered the elephants were, Well the creators overreacted and created too weak of elephants for Empire Total War. Its the most ridiculous thing about this game. I hate the elephants, they ALWAYS DIE. I don’t know how many battles I have lost when i engage my general. I’ve had several cases where the enemy has a unit of horses that attack my general. I will then use a unit of my own cavalry to attack them in the rear. I will have two full health units pancaking enemy cavalry and I almost always lose because my general will die and the moral causes both units to rout. I’ve seen it so many times to know you underpowered those elephants. Not to mention the enemy will often times lose only one man while my entire general unit dies. The only thing the elephants are good for is a single charge, but they can never run away, and after the charge, they are guaranteed dead, no matter what unit they are fighting.
Posted by Brian Birkes on September 15th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Just have some players play some battles with Maratha confederacy with the elephants. They are weak units that have high maintenance costs. What should be done, is to have gunfire more effective on the elephants, while creating a very high melee strength. Hell, I’d rather see them overpowered like Med. Total War II than to be so underpowered as they are in this game.
Also, I notice some of your camels, the animation/graphic doesn’t show up in the right place. I see camels dieing and kill enemies even when they don’t appear close together. Camels charge, and my men died many units length before the camels arrived or achieved contact.
Posted by Brian Birkes on September 15th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
When is it coming out, cause ive down graded back to Medieval 2, cause it actually has better AI than Empire?
Posted by Peter on September 16th, 2009 at 7:12 am
On my PC when playing Empire Total war the game locks up and in about 15 sec this window pops up saying ” Empire Total war has stopped responding and much be shut down”. I have got the latest direct x installed and have tried different video drivers. Will this new patch 1.4 fix this?
Posted by Chris on September 16th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
What I really hate about this game is the superhuman speed your troops run at. Would this be fixed or not?
Posted by xiaoli on September 17th, 2009 at 4:51 am
was just wondering when and if there will be an expansion pack available for etw.
Posted by funks on September 17th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Still no Multi player campaign, this is a shame
Posted by Erich8300 on September 17th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Has the crashing error been fixed?
Posted by David on September 17th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
This stuff sounds really good. I was wondering where we could get info on any new upcoming additions to the game such as: new playable factions, new units or anything else that will be added to the game that is new?
Posted by Roman on September 18th, 2009 at 4:32 am
I think there is another bug in this game: The reloading of howitzers, if you look at it closely it looks really stupid. It is hard to explain, but the thing they shove into the cannon after firing does not go in to the cannon but next to it. (this is not the case with normal cannon.
Posted by Ruben on September 18th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
good game
Posted by Roma on September 18th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
When is this update being released.
Posted by Joe on September 19th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Looks good. What about additional maps for Multi Player?
Posted by Jordan on September 20th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
In the Empire game, after i hit “end turn” during a campaign it does not finish the end turn and does not allow you to continue. Yet, the menu works, but it does not allow you to continue forcing to start a new campaign. Will this patch fix that problem. i have reinstalled it three times and it does the same thing or what can it be?
My system:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3000+ 3.0GHz
4GB of RAM
Geforce 512MB 9600 GT
Windows XP Professional SP3
Posted by chris on September 20th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
cool
Posted by Dogshit111 on September 23rd, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Some improvement but still much needs to be done. AI is vastly improved as far as diplomacy and so is agression. Economics though is still a sore point with me and many,many others as I still wouldn’t recommend this game to a war gamer as you spend more time as banker than as general
Next their a fault when ships leave the far east asian trade route,especially heading for ports in south america. I was the netherlands and my ships were headed for my ports on the atlantic side of south america.I did what you normally do and click to that section of map. My ships ended up on the other side of south america. Only way I got them their was to route them through brazil trade route and then on .
Still hoping for a economic patch as otherwise I will removed this game from my computer as it isn’t worth my time to try to figured out your screwed up system. Try listening to the many instead of the few which worship you like you were god for once as many of the people I’ve talked to often wonder if some of your loyal fans aren’t really your staff members or family sending in so-called puff e-mails to make you look good. For your sake I hope they’re wrong but sometimes I even wonder. Heck I bet some of them give you rave reveiws even if the upgrades were blank.
By the way this is after patch 1.4 and on a new game,not one started before the patch.
Posted by William on September 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Since the NEW 1.4 EMPIRE (Total war) Patch, I can’t move any of my Ships
out of their ports, as I click on a sea or ocean to move them to,
The Captain screams out ; ” we can’t sail there sir, we are a ship”…….
So obviously since the new patch, we now have a pretty serious Bug !!.
Posted by Medieval AL on September 23rd, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Great fixes on some of the features that weren’t working so well, like the speed up time in battles. …only thing is, since this update, I’ve been unable to use any navy that’s in a port. I can’t leave, highlighting one or all ships and moving the icon to open sea just produces the ‘X’ icon. Not very helpful when one of my trade partners’ ports is being blockaded and I’ve got ships enough to go and relieve them, but they’re useless and stuck at home! :o(
Posted by Alex on September 24th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I am a real fan of theTOTAL WAR series and bought all games so far.
this changed with the use of STEAM !
LAST game I bought, promised !!!
And everyone I ‘ve talked to, thinks the same !!!!!!
the updates takes way too long. not everybody has DSL !
and you are not even asked if you want to update.
furthermore
the latest update with the changes in sea battles – esp the slower, less manouverable ships, really killed the fun.
looks like you changed things people didn t asked for….
Posted by Alex Dueck on September 24th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Sfter having installed this update the game started crashing for me. It all started with clicking a port in Genoa region, then it extended to several ports around it. And ultimately ended with a crach after an end turn. Hopefully this is something fixable
Posted by FrostFire on September 24th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Fix the melee you guys brought back in 1.4 the 1.3 land battles were just nice, now 1.4 they just charge ya and melee like in 1.2 FIX this its an easy quick fix ya guys can do.
Posted by 1in1class on September 25th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
hey guys i like the new update but i have a problem before i got the update i downloaded a mod that i think replaced some of the sound files and now the sound doesnt work. how can i fix it?
Posted by Myers on September 26th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
ETW patch 1.4. An epic fail. The Naval game was a bit out – as people could have unlimited rocket ships – a curiosity not fit for big fleet – open water action. BUT the 1.4 fix is an insult to reason.
Chain does not fly further than Ball.
Small guns do not shoot further than the big guns on Ships of the line
brigs and sloops do not move at strobe inducing speeds
Sails may shred But masts were made of stonger wood than balsa. They dont fall to a single slavo from 12 guns at long range and certainly not two masts
We are now in a world where 1st ship of choice for a game is a brig or a sloop – maybe an admirals 5th and then 6ths…3rds and finally mabye a 2nd or 1st. There is no point in feiling expensive heavy ships of the line if a brig or a 5th rate can completely demats it in 2 shots and be out of range to the bigger ship all the time.
ETW has become fantasy TW – please undo the damage 1.4 has done to Naval games.
Send the programmers back to grade school to learn physics and history.
I challenge any CA coder to an ETW 1.4 Naval game where he talkes only 3rd, 2nd and 1st rates fully funded – and I take a handful of 5th rates leaving cash in the bank. I will own him
Fix this.
Posted by Wayne on September 27th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Update 1.4 not only improved various game aspects, it also added many new bugs and problems. Where can I report these?
Posted by Dvaimatura on September 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am
very good blog, so how will this vicious circle affect the resources for NTW, or are ca planning to put their foot down this time and not release the game until its ready fully aware this could prove disastrous? And do you think the likes of the 1.5 patch and war path will correct the issues you’ve had with your reputation and the like from empire’s initial release?
Posted by vaptin on October 1st, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Sega needs to add an arbitration feature to the diplomacy menu. When allies join you against an enemy, they continue to fight even if you make peace.
Posted by Ewald the Black on October 7th, 2009 at 7:05 am
More units for poland and more money for otto for campain, with turning point scens like Battle of Vienna, Siege of Yorktown, And Siege of Mosocow
Posted by John Sobieski on October 7th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Playing the Maratha. Upgraded with patch 1.5
Problems:
1. Maratha infantry won’t use the militray upgrade of fire by line, etc.
2. Very limited Maratha infantry options.
3. Some friendly or even very friendly countries refuse a trade agreement. Repeatedly.
4. Spain kept breaking trade agreement and accepting new once each turn.
5. Tried exchanging 3 tech vs 1 tech. Was refused.
6. AI blocks one port and my economy goes bust. Ain’t fair, for I have got 4-5 active trading ports working.
Can you please help with a patch 1.6 to take care of these issues?
Posted by Sdg on October 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am
excuse me. sorry for asking that in here : how can I download and launch patch 1.4? where is the web link? thanks
Posted by Anil on October 19th, 2009 at 12:19 am
please in the next total war put all american country. argentina(independence of spain), brazil ( portugal ) and the others
Posted by luciano on October 21st, 2009 at 3:31 am
where is Portugual?
we have a great story
Posted by dantezi on October 29th, 2009 at 8:40 am
need to move around ship after insert having your back to the bow as only option spoils simulation realism Ihope this can be fixed would make the game a 10 instead of a 9
Posted by bill keech on November 17th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Great GAME!
bit surprised i couldn’t sail to China and take Hong Kong and set fire to some junks…
Posted by The Masked Avenger on November 28th, 2009 at 10:34 am
1. I HATE Steam. Why cannot I play the game off disc without Steam getting in the way?
2. The Indian Campain is a cheap and unrealisti to Historical run. It is actually absurd
3. It is unavoidably essential to make sense of this period (Empires) and Napoleon to come (and American Civil War one day????) to no be able to capture cannon. This must be rectified.
4. The start of the Grand Campain takes little account of an historical start… size of fleets for example.
That will do for the moment.
Posted by Michael Round on November 28th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
hey sorry about the dumb question but i cant find them anywhere, can anyone tell me where i can download this updates/patches??
Posted by tin on December 5th, 2009 at 12:25 am
I can’t run ETW on my computer?? Its a brand new PC, running Windows 7, with the following specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo X9100 (3.06GHz, 1066MHz FSB)
32bit Windows 7
4.0GB DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700M, 512MB
Anyone have any ideas? The program loads, but locks up before i can even get into a game. I see the opeining screens, and video. But everytime i try to start a game, it freezes.
Thank you
Posted by Joe G. on December 14th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
ok, this is absalutly rediculas, where the hell is the patch for this game??? i cant find anything on google, only websights describing what it is, there is NO WHERE i can see that leads to a patch attall…. and why the hell doesnt the HOME WEBPAGE supply this damn patch?? what the hell is going on???? this is stupid. if anyone knows please link me the latest patch for ETW i kinda want it downloaded before i get the game, i am assuming its pretty massive from the changes i heard
Posted by Nicholas on December 25th, 2009 at 2:25 am
I put ETW on the shelf on first release because it was so badly unfinished (and I dont believe the community ever got an explantation on this least of all an apology).
Nine months on, (xmas) Ive come back to play it, downloaded the patch (excited) and within 15 moves of playing a new campaign I have a list of 5 or 6 major bugs and other issues (a list can be provided). One of these still incudes a CTD to desktop( I mean come on).
I now see that you are planning to release NTW when you havent even ironed out what are major isssues that make ETW a BIG BIG TURNOFF.
Really CA, it all looks so so good! But you are in danger of losing all your credibility along with your loyal fan-base because they, like myself, are afraid to throw good money after bad!! ( answers still would be very much appreciated- email provided no excuses)
Posted by The Steppenwulf on December 27th, 2009 at 1:42 am
at least some of you can play this game. My son bought this with hs Christmas money because he loves the TW series and we can’t even get it to work. It keeps telling us that the key code has already been activated. We have tried just about everything. Now waiting on a response from “STEAM” to see what we can do. From waht I see on the forum I am NOT the only one with this problem. I truly hope SEGA hasn’t turned ino a take your money any run kind of company I have always liked the majority of their games
Posted by carol k. on January 1st, 2010 at 4:52 am
Can anyone tell me how I can roll back to 1.3?
Posted by Jeff Vader on January 4th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
contemplating buying this game but still seems like many unresolved issues. Will they be fixed or should I skip?
Posted by gb on March 30th, 2010 at 5:59 am
I really appreciate the person who has written such a wonderful blog. Your simple use of language and no frills makes the post a great read.I really like your informative post.Thanks for awesome sharing with us.
Posted by Roller Blinds on January 5th, 2011 at 10:59 am